Håb By The Haiku Project

 

Håb

By

The Haiku Project

Written by

Steve Sheppard

 

It’s time for a musical treat for our global senses with the release of Håb. Henrik Hytteballe aka The Haiku Project is about to release his eleventh solo album, and that moment alone is a freshly opened door to one of the most intelligent, instrumental music artists the modern world has seen and heard, and Håb another new vehicle to help each and every listener to a place of musical ecstasy.

Flourishing is our opening track, this is a powerful electronically driven beginning, one can feel essences of a John Carpenter styled opus from the late 70’s, but one that also contained some wonderful new age motifs from the latter half of the last century as well, in what was a very impressive opening foray.

We then move into a more gentle narrative with the piece Serenity, the acoustic guitar of Kim Jeppesen is used many times on this album and this would be the first of those sublime moments, one that sees a further electric explorative journey by the guitarist too, combine this with a light percussive element, and we can note that this is a crafted creation of great value and sound indeed.

Night Watch once more takes us along another narrative that lies more in the traditional new age meadows, with a combination of keyboard and sensitive percussive timbre, soft pastiches of synths are layered with a mood filled cello performed so beautifully by Christophe Luciano, this for me raised the track itself into a realm of great character.

We head slowly to the mid-way marker of the album and as we do so we come across a wonderful globally fused offering entitled Vesuvio. My research suggest a link to Mount Vesuvius, if that is correct then a more apt creation of a composition you would not find, this certainly does have a progressive build and a most pronounced almost dance like electronic manifestation to its overall storyline, with Hytteballe presenting a powerful exploration of a more Berlin styled arrangement, one that eventually leads to a stimulating coda.

One of my adorations of the artist is his ability to change alter direction and mood at whim; on tracks like Toy he does just that, bringing together a friendly keyboard based arrangement, with a light hearted refrain, whilst on offerings like Dew a more pronounced 90’s new age style comes to light, one that utilises various tones, effects and musical postulations.

This 10 track release is an incredibly gifted compilation of artistic endeavours; a prime example would be the following narrative Swimming in the Sky, one maybe quite surprised by the overall arrangement, which through its powerful refrains on both keyboards and drums, invigorating energies can be found, the latter performed by the incredibly insightful Cabeabel, bringing the listener an anthem like composition that could with ease fit into any futuristic movie..

As we move into the deeper waters of the album we come across a piece that was released as a single earlier on this year called Esperanza, its memorable melody and the fluent guitar of Kim Jeppesen, still brings a moment of instrumental pleasure and gentleness to my mind on this autumn day.

So we arrive at the penultimate track from this exciting new release, and this warming musical prose is entitled Beekeepers Son, the essence from its birth, its musical genesis so to speak, is cleverly artistic in manifesting an opening redolent of the subject matter, and then literally exploding into a mixture of global fusion of guitars, keyboards and percussion to gift us an effervescent offering.

The conclusion to this fantastic album is the smooth and cinematic-like piece entitled Circulation. Blissful synths chords lift us up above the clouds on this quite ethereal parting creation, the angelic like wings of this glorious ultimate gift, are a sublime opportunity for the artist to leave us with a memorable and magical moment, this he achieves with ease and great aplomb.

It is always a pleasure to visit the land of musical magic created by The Haiku Project; in this case that charming tonal location would be the album Håb, on which a voyage of melodious plenitude can be found, on one of the most exciting and artistically intelligent instrumental albums I have had the pleasure to listen to for quite some time. There literally is something for everyone on Håb by The Haiku Project, and as such any result other than a huge chart hit for the composer would be an insult, this album is the epitome of what truly great instrumental music should sound like.